


how proud I'd be

by apathetic_revenant



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, a little positive influence goes a long way, light stangst, pre-canon AU, sailing gone awry, wildly unrealistic happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 15:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11581371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apathetic_revenant/pseuds/apathetic_revenant
Summary: In which Stan chooses a different escape route from Glass Shard Beach.





	how proud I'd be

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by archervale's 'au where when Stan is kicked out he takes the Stan'o War instead of his car' prompt on tumblr, and crossposted there: https://amolecularmachine.tumblr.com/post/162561874479/archervale-au-where-when-stan-is-kicked-out-he

Stan didn't really know how he'd gotten to the beach. Ford had come bursting into the living room in a blaze of righteous fury and turned the world upside down, and everything after that had was strange and distorted, like a waking nightmare. He'd driven off in the El Diablo and now somehow he was here, one hand gripped tight around the rough wood of the old boat, without actually being able to remember making the decision to go there in the first place.

He supposed he'd wanted to say goodbye.

On a whim, he climbed into the boat and lowered himself onto the seat, like it was any normal afternoon hanging out with his brother, instead of the night his life had shattered.

How had it all happened so quickly? Only a few days ago he had never even heard the words 'West Coast Tech’. Only a few days ago the future had been as warm and welcoming as a summer morning. He and Ford were going to graduate and leave this dump for a life of adventure.

Only a few days ago, it had been him and Ford. Now it was just him.

His head ached. He wanted to cry. He couldn’t cry.

What was he supposed to _do_ now?

The boat rocked gently in the surf, offering no answers.

He knew he couldn't make it on his own, not really. Dad had been right; he had always been a leech, trailing after his brother. Ford was the one who was going to change the world; Stan was just an afterthought.

_You're just a dumber, sweatier version of him._

_You have two sons. One of them is a genius. The other one is sitting outside this door._

It wasn't like he'd ever asked for much. He'd never needed to be impressive or brilliant or outstanding. He didn't mind if he never stepped out of Ford's shadow.

But apparently Ford did.

The anger that had been boiling in his gut rose to a sudden toxic frenzy. Fine. _Fine._ Ford didn't care about their childhood dream anymore? He wanted to get rid of it and Stan and everything they'd worked for together? Then Stan would get rid of it all for him. It was the only thing he had left, the only thing that was still his and not Ford's, the only thing that hadn't been washed away in the floodwaters of that one small and terrible mistake.

He knew it was a stupid idea. Knew, even as he retrieved his bag and everything else useful he could find from the El Diablo, that of all the stupid things he'd done over the course of his life, this one would royally take the cake. He barely knew anything about sailing, he had no money, no supplies, no destination; he didn't even really know if the Stan o’War was seaworthy. He was probably just going to get himself killed and no one would even miss him.

But he couldn't bring himself to care. He had nowhere else to go, nothing else to do, and the only thought he could find room for was that if he could do nothing else worthwhile in his life he could at least make sure the Stan o'War saw open water at least once, and that he did not spend the entirety of his life trapped in New Jersey.

 

Ford didn’t miss his twin at all.

He didn’t miss Stan pestering him to take a break in the middle of his study sessions. He didn’t miss Stan’s terrible jokes and the shit-eating grin he always wore right before he was about to make a comment he knew full well was bloody stupid and therefore guaranteed to get a rise out of Ford. He didn’t miss the comforting nighttime susurrus of Stan’s snoring and the creaking of the bunk below him. He definitely didn’t miss having someone around to tease him for using words like ‘susurrus’.

He had spent a great deal of time lately very pointedly not thinking about all the things he was _not_ missing.

This was not easy. Everything in his life seemed designed to remind him of Stan’s absence. If he was in his bedroom, his eye was drawn to the empty bunk with the old boxing gloves still hanging from the bedpost. If he was at dinner with his parents, the taut, ringing silence drew attention to the fourth chair that was no longer at the table. If he walked down towards the beach, the smell of the salt air forcefully brought to mind...well...everything.

It just demonstrated how suffocating Stan’s presence in his life had become, he told himself stiffly. The fact that there was nothing in his life that didn’t in some way remind him of Stan was a damning indictment of how being a twin had robbed him of his individuality, and the sooner he got over it the better off he would be.

So he went to school, keeping his head down and ignoring the questions- “Hey Pines, where’s your shadow?” “You lose something, Pines?” “Didn’t there used to be more of you?”-did his work diligently, and then went straight home to do more work. He left their- _his_ bedroom only for dinner, and even then only because it was required. Stan might have robbed him of his best possible future, but he would still find a way to succeed. He had to. Someone had to make up those lost millions.

“ _You’ll_ make me proud, boy,” his father had said that night, after the sound of the El Diablo had finally faded into the distance. “I _know_ you will.”

He had never been able to argue with his father.

So he was sitting at his desk Saturday afternoon perusing college applications for the umpteenth time-they didn’t get any more encouraging no matter how often he looked at them-when he heard the floorboard outside creak, the telltale sign of someone about to enter the room.

For a brief moment he expected to look up and see Stan come charging in like usual, and immediately berated himself for it.

Filbrick entered without knocking, as per usual, and also as usual spoke without preamble. “Old Murray just called. Seems your brother’s car has been parked by the beach all week. He says if someone doesn’t pick it up within an hour he’s gonna have it towed.”

Absolutely none of those words were what Ford had been expecting to hear. He tried to formulate some kind of adequate response to this, but the only thing that came out was, “Um, what?”

“You heard me,” Filbrick said flatly. “If you want that car, you better get down there and pick it up. Otherwise I’m letting Murray get rid of it. I’m not cleaning up any more of your brother’s messes.”

He turned and headed back down the stairs without another word, leaving Ford to puzzle out this latest bizarre turn of events.

By the time he had put on his shoes and made it out the door, he had it all figured out. Stan must have been loitering around the beach this whole week, probably moping over that stupid boat and his stupid treasure-hunting fantasy instead of going off and doing something _productive_ with his life, and now Ford was going to have to go fix things for him, _again_. Well, he wasn’t having it. He was done with handling every problem just because Stan couldn’t ever be bothered to deal with them himself.

He had worked up a furious thunderhead of anger by the time he stomped into the little parking lot of Murray’s Snack Shack. Murray himself was sitting on the trunk of the El Diablo, smoking a cigarette.

Old Murray was as ancient and crusty as the rickety little beachside shack where he sold sodas and ice cream, but despite his curmudgeonliness the twins had always liked him. When they were kids they’d often cast him as a character in their various adventures, usually the villain; when they were older and in possession of both more courage and more pocket money, they would walk over to the shack and buy sodas when they wanted a break from working on the Stan O’War. Murray, with his perpetual indecipherable grumbling and funny old flat hat and constant smell of cigarette smoke, was a fixture of the beach, and therefore a fixture of their childhood.

Which meant that, just like absolutely every other damn thing in Ford’s life lately, he was painful to think about.

Murray flicked his cigarette away and stood up as Ford approached. “Ain’t seen you around lately, Pines,” he said. “Ain’t seen your brother neither. What gives?”

Ford clenched his fists and looked away. Surely Murray knew by now. It felt like the whole town knew what happened. “It doesn’t matter.”

“...Right. Well, I hate to do this, but I can’t have this car sittin’ here forever. Don’t exactly have a lot of space to begin with.” He scratched thoughtfully at the bristles that stuck up every which way on his chin. “Funny thing, really. Usually your brother’s more responsible with his car.”

 _Responsible_ wasn’t exactly a word Ford associated with Stan, but he had to admit that Murray had a point; Stan took care of that car like he took care of nothing else.

_Certainly more care than he took with any of my things-_

But just as he was winding himself up all over again, something that Murray had said finally sunk in.

“Wait. Did you say you hadn’t seen Stanley?”

“Nope,” Murray said. “Not seen hide nor hair of him for at least a week now.”

“But...but…” But that didn’t make any sense. If Stan’s car was here, Stan had to be here. Where else would he be?

“You’re sure you haven’t seen him? At all?” he asked weakly, glancing at the driver’s seat as if this would offer some explanation.

“Kid, if I’d’a seen him, I’d’ve told _him_ to move his car,” Murray said. “Only called up your dad when it didn’t look like it was gonna get moved any other way.”

It didn’t matter, it _didn’t_ matter because Stan could do whatever he wanted with his life now and it wasn’t Ford’s problem anymore, but somehow his stomach had still gone all cold. Something just didn’t feel right here. Stan wouldn’t leave the El Diablo. He loved that car more than anything. Anything except-

Except…

“Excuse me just a minute,” Ford said, and took off at a run without even hearing Murray’s reply. There was no way what he was thinking could be true, absolutely no way, it was a foolhardy idea and he would be laughing about it in a moment but he had to make sure.

He hit the broken gate that marked the entrance to the beach and stopped, panting, looking across the sand that had been their playground: the little caves, the rusty old swingset, and, where there _should_ have been a rickety old sailboat bobbing in the surf...absolutely nothing at all.

No. It couldn’t be. Even Stan wouldn’t be that foolish.

He jogged back to the shack to find Murray still standing by the car, looking at him implacably. “Have...have you seen our boat?” he gasped, waiting for Murray to tell him that yes, someone had stolen it-it had come loose and floated away-it had been hauled off for being an eyesore-

“That old thing?” Murray said. “Nah. It up and disappeared. Suppose someone must’ve untied it or somesuch. Sorry, kid.”

No. No way.

“When...when did you last see it?”

Murray shrugged and scratched his head through the worn-thin fabric of his cap. “Hmm...Tuesday night, I think. It was out there when I closed up shop, but when I got here in the morning it was gone. Yeah, Tuesday night. I remember thinkin’ it was strange. That boat’s gotten to be somethin’ of a fixture.”

Tuesday night.

The same night that-

Ford swayed where he stood. Stan had done it. He had really done it. He’d sailed away.

He’d known his brother had put far too much stock in that old childhood dream, but he hadn’t ever thought that even Stan would be foolish enough to actually try to _do_ it. On his own, with no experience, in a boat they had pulled out of a _cave_. What on Earth did he think he was going to do? He surely didn’t think he could actually go treasure hunting in that thing, did he?

_Well, what else did you think he was going to do?_

I don’t know, Ford snapped back at himself. Something that made more sense than _this!_

_Like what? What was he going to do, all alone, without a home or a family or anything?_

“Kid?” Murray said. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Ford said distantly. “I’ll...take the car. Thank you, Mr. Murray.”

Murray gave him a long, discerning look, but all he said was, “Alright then.”

Ford drove back in a daze. What had happened to Stan? There was no way he’d actually succeed-not that Ford even really knew what Stan was trying to succeed _at_. But surely it could only be a matter of time before some catastrophe befell him. Before the ship broke apart, before the weather turned, before he got lost and began to run out of supplies…

 _Stop it_ , he told himself firmly. _Stop it stop it stopitstopitstopit. He’s fine. He’s_ fine. _He probably got a few yards out, sunk the thing while he was messing around, and was too embarrassed to show himself around again. That’s probably it. There’s no reason to think he’s drifting helplessly somewhere or dying of heatstroke or dead, dead and drowned in the water right now-_

No. _No._

It was Stan. Stan would be alright. He had to be. He always was.

Filbrick barely glanced up from his paper as Ford came in. “Well?”

“I...got the car,” Ford said.

Filbrick grunted something that might have been approval or perhaps just a general noise.

“Erm,” Ford began, surprising himself. “I...I think Stan may have gone off in our boat.”

Filbrick continued reading. Eventually, when Ford said nothing else, he turned the page with a loud rattle and said, “So?”

“So...uh...well...I don’t think he really knows what he’s doing and...maybe we should, I don’t know...call the police or something? He might get in trouble…”

“I expect he will,” Filbrick said without looking up. “But it’s no concern of mine what he does anymore. And it’s no concern of yours. You focus on your own problems. Last thing you need is that loser dragging you down when he’s not even here anymore.”

“...Right,” Ford said. “Right.”

He went upstairs and sat at his desk and stared at the applications without taking in a single word.

No concern of yours. No concern of yours.

 

“Hey, kid.”

Someone was shaking him by the shoulder. Ford, probably. He’d overslept, as usual, and Ford was trying to rouse him so they could make it to school on time.

“C’mon now, kid. Wake up.”

Alright, _alright._ He’d get up. He just wanted a few more minutes. Ford always got up too early anyway…

_Ford._

His eyes flew open.

He was laying in the bottom of the Stan o’War, sunburned and parched, and someone was shaking him and everything had gone wrong and he was never going to see Ford again.

“There we go. You had me worried there for a minute.”

He looked up, wincing at the ache in his neck-the bottom of a sailboat didn’t make for the most comfortable sleeping arrangements-and saw an old man with a glowing halo looking down on him.

Well, this was it. He’d died. He groaned and dropped his head back down with a slight _thunk._ He would have hoped that the afterlife would involve less pain and flaking skin, but then again, maybe he was getting some kind of just rewards.

“Yeah, I reckon you don’t feel too good,” the old man said with amusement. “How long you been out here, son?”

Stan licked his cracked lips. “What day is it?” he mumbled.

“It’s the 18th. Friday.”

Friday. And it had been...Tuesday, when he’d left. Right. Because the science fair had been Monday, the talk with Ford on the beach had been Monday, it was Monday night that he had wandered through the darkened school auditorium with all his dreams crashing around him and lashed out in exactly the wrong place. It was Wednesday morning that he woke to find that he had drifted out beyond sight of the coastline, and two days since that he had spent living off the meager stash of snacks and bottled water they’d kept stored in the Stan o’War, looking out over the waves, barely thinking anything at all. Half a day and a night since he’d drunk the last of the water that he used to tease Ford for insisting on- “ _hydration is important, Stanley,  especially when we’re working in this heat, and no, we can’t survive on sodas alone_ ”- and sat staring at the bottle for a long time, wondering if he could put a message in it, if he even knew what to say.

Two days.

It hadn’t even been a _week_ yet.

“Two days, I guess,” he said, and closed his eyes again.

“Two _days?_ ” the old man said. Stan was starting to wish God or whoever would leave him alone. He just wanted to lay here and mope for a while, really. “Son, what are you doing out here? Does your family know where you are?”

_your family_

It was like a pebble that had shifted and kicked off an avalanche. Before Stan even knew what was happening he was sobbing into the warped old wood and he hated it, he _hated_ it because he wasn’t supposed to cry, not now, not ever, because men _didn’t_ , he’d been told that for as long as he could remember, men didn’t show weakness like that, that was what Dad had always said-Dad looking at him with that cold implacable stare-Dad telling him to man up and deal with it-even now, even after everything, he was still a damn disappointment, he still couldn’t get anything right, laying here crying in great heaving gasps in front of a total stranger and it _hurt_ , his head was pounding and he didn’t even know how there was this much water left in him but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t _stop_ -

“Oh. Oh, dear.” He felt a firm hand on his shoulder and flinched, waiting for a slap upside the head and a stern warning to cut that shit out already-

But it didn’t happen.

He heard the old man sigh heavily. “Look, son...why don’t you come up here and I’ll get you some water and you can tell me about it if you want, alright?”

Stan finally opened his eyes. Through the blur of tears and early morning light he finally realized that the old man was leaning down from the side of a fishing boat-a simple little craft, but still big compared to the Stan o’War. He rubbed at his eyes and squinted. The old man and his boat were backlit by the rising sun, giving them a strange but ultimately non-ethereal glow.

So he wasn’t dead-probably-but this realization didn’t make him feel any better. Actually, it made him feel worse. Now he still had all his problems to deal with _and_ he felt like an idiot.

He didn’t really feel like getting up at all but the old man was looking at him expectantly and arguing seemed harder than not arguing, so he shrugged and let himself be hauled up onto the boat.

The old man set him down on the seat running along the side of the boat before pulling a mini-cooler out from under the wheel of the boat and taking a water bottle out of it. “Here. Drink it slow, now, or it’ll just come up again.”

Stan was so thirsty he wanted to down the entire bottle in one go, but things were already going badly enough without him throwing up all over his rescuer’s boat, so he drank the water as slowly as he could stand. The old man waited until the bottle was half gone before he spoke again.

“Now, why don’t you tell me just what the hell you thought you were playing at, going out in a thing like that all on your own? It’s a miracle you lasted two days, you know. You’re damn lucky I saw you drifting around out there, or I don’t know what would have happened to you.”

Stan blinked and glanced over at his shoulder. To his surprise, he could see the blurry outline of the coast not too far away. He wondered idly how far he’d gotten; he didn’t recognize anything there, but that didn’t necessarily mean much.

“I know,” he said, looking down at his battered sneakers. “I mean, I knew it was stupid.”

The old man huffed in frustration. “But you did it anyway?”

Stan shrugged. For all the water he’d drunk, his mouth had still somehow gone dry. “I didn’t...have nuthin else to do, really.”

And then it was all spilling out in a torrent he couldn’t seem to shut off: him and Ford, growing up in Glass Shard Beach and spending their days working on their sailboat and vowing to get away from it all someday, except Ford was better than him at everything and he wanted more, he wanted something Stan couldn’t have and that meant there was nothing more for Stan _to_ have and he’d gotten angry and he’d screwed everything up just like he always did and it had been the last straw and now he had nothing left but a rickety old boat and the bag his father had thrown at him and he’d just wanted to get away, get away and now Ford was gone and everything was gone and it was all ruined forever-

At some point the tears started again. He swiped angrily at his face, trying to make them stop, but it didn’t work. As if he hadn’t ruined things enough already, now he was spilling his guts to this old man he didn’t even know because he wasn’t strong enough to just handle his own damn problems himself. The old man was going to sneer at him, rightfully berate him for being so weak, was going to drop him back in the Stan o’War and leave him to man up and deal with things like he was supposed to be doing. At least he’d gotten some water first, although he’d probably gone and cried it all out again like the idiot he was.

“Oh, son,” the old man said sorrowfully. “That’s a real rough break.”

Stan jerked his head up in surprise.

The old man was looking at him with a sad smile. “I’ve been there myself. Got kicked out when I was...oh, fifteen or so. Although my dad didn’t try to dress it up like it was my fault or nothing. Things were tough, there were too many mouths to feed, I was the oldest, so I had to go. That was just the way it was.”

Stan didn’t quite know what to say to that. “It...it was my fault, though,” he mumbled. “I screwed up-”

“No, it wasn’t,” the old man said, with a sharp edge in his voice. “We all screw up sometimes. Doesn’t give anyone the right to treat you poorly, least of all your own family.”

Stan wanted to argue with this, but he wasn’t quite sure how, so he took another drink of water and looked back down at his shoes.

They sat in silence for a little while, rocking gently back and forth in the morning light. It was quiet out here in a way Stan had never known before, with no city noise in the background, nothing but the lapping of the waves and the occasional gull crying somewhere. That quiet felt huge and powerful as the ocean itself, like it could just swallow him up and he would never be found again. He wasn’t sure he’d mind that.

“What’s your name, kid?” the old man asked eventually, making Stan jump a little.

“Stanley,” he said.

“Stanley, hm...oh, that explains the name of the boat, then. Heh, that’s a good one.” The old man leaned back and gave him a long, discerning look. “Listen, Stanley, I got an idea.”

“O-oh yeah?” _Here it came, the sympathy was nice and all but it was over, time to get sent back to Glass Shard Beach and probably with a call the cops along the way-_

“Yeah. See, I run a little museum in town-that’s it attached to the lighthouse there, you see? But I’m getting up there and I can’t handle everything by myself any more, especially not during the summer when we’re busy. So-if you want, just if you want-how’s about you come work for me for a bit? I can’t pay you much, but I can put you up for a while, and it’d give you a bit of time to find your feet.”

This was the last thing Stan had expected.

“You’re offering me a _job?_ ” he croaked. “Like...work...for you...for money?”

“I know, it’s not exactly the most glamorous sounding thing,” the old man said, evidently misunderstanding Stan’s shock. “But it’s all I can offer and you gotta start somewhere-”

“What’s the catch?” Stan blurted out.

The old man blinked. “Catch?”

“There’s-there’s gotta be a catch, right? I, I mean, I just told you, I’m not good for nothing, I screw up everything I touch-why would you give me a job, just like that? Is there something you want from me? I don’t have anything-”

The old man’s face softened. “Ain’t no catch, son. I usually hire someone to come help during the summer anyway, but I’ve come up short so far this year. Not many kids left in town, really. They all seem to want to escape to somewhere more interesting.” He smiled gently. “So, what do you say? You’ll have to work hard, but-”

“I’ll do it,” Stan said, before the old man could change his mind. “I...I mean...thank you. _Thank you._ ”

He still didn’t really believe there wasn’t a catch here somewhere, but he could deal with that when it came around. A steady job and a place to stay was far, far more than he’d expected to get anytime soon.

The old man grinned. “That’s the spirit. I’ll just hook up your boat here and we’ll head back to shore. You can call me Rory, by the way. Rory McGowan, but everyone round here just calls me Rory. I’m there the only Rory there is, y’see.”

He held out a hand. Stan shook it.

“Wait,” he said, as Rory turned to tie the Stan o’War to the larger boat. “Just tell me one thing. Did I make it out of New Jersey?”

Rory threw back his head and laughed.

“You did, son, you did at that. Just barely, but you did. You’re in Delaware.”

Stan smiled for the first time since Tuesday night. “I’ll take it.”

 

It's not my fault.

_It is your fault. It's totally your fault._

Dad was the one who threw him out!

_And you didn't do a thing to stop him, did you?_

He sabotaged my project! My future!

_So for that you wanted him dead?_

No! No, I didn't want him dead, I just wanted him to-to go away and grow up a little! And he's not dead and if he was it wouldn't be my fault that he decided to do something so stupid!

_No, but you could have guessed that he would, without you there to stop him._

So what, I'm supposed to spend my whole life running after my brother, fixing his mistakes?

_No. Not if you don't mind letting him get killed as the alternative._

Ford groaned out loud and slammed his head into the desk. It was late- how late, he didn't know, but sometime after midnight- and he still had more work to do before he could sleep but he couldn't _focus._ The same thoughts just kept going round and round in his head and he couldn't make them settle down no matter how hard he tried.

_It's your fault it's your fault it's your fault_

His back ached. He'd been sitting here for hours straight. In fact, aside from the occasional bathroom break and the obligatory stonily silent dinner, he hadn't gotten up all day. But somehow he still had barely gotten any work done.

_It's your fault it's your fault it's your fault_

Stan wouldn't have let him work this long. Stan would've said something that would make going to bed seem reasonable, instead of like giving in.

But Stan wasn't here.

_It's your fault it's your fault it's your fault_

_Please explain, in a short essay, why you should be accepted as a student to this University,_ the paper in front of him said.

“I shouldn't,” Ford said to the achingly empty room. “I'm a terrible person.”

He buried his head in his hands.

 

“I don’t open until ten, so we’ve got a bit of time,” Rory said as they walked up the hill from the docks to the lighthouse. “You hungry?”

Stan’s stomach naturally chose that moment to growl loudly. He nodded sheepishly while Rory laughed.

“I figured as much. Alright, I’ll make us some pancakes, and then I’ll give you a quick look-round.”

The museum was comprised of the old lighthouse, the building next to it-two stories plus a little attic apartment where Rory lived-and an outside area with a garden and some old maritime equipment accompanied by instructional plaques. The town itself was small and quiet but it was on the way to lot of bigger places up and down the coast, so the museum saw a decent enough amount of people in the summers, usually looking to take a break in the middle of their road trip.

Rory explained all this as he made pancakes one at a time in the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Stan tried not to wolf down his stack too quickly, still feeling on tenterhooks, ready for this whole thing to fall through if he stepped out of line. It was hard, though; there had not been two days’ worth of food on the Stan o’War by any stretch of the imagination. At some point he had gotten so hot and thirsty and generally miserable that he didn’t even feel hungry anymore, but now it was starting to come back with a vengeance.

Rory seemed more amused than offended by Stan’s table manners, though. “I see I’ll have to go grocery shopping,” he said as Stan polished off his plate, which had been piled considerably higher than Rory’s. “There’s not much here. Been a mighty long time since I had an appetite like that.”

“Oh...um,” Stan said, feeling low. “You don’t have to-”

Rory waved him off. “I said I’d put you up and I intend to. Don’t fret about it. Now, you want to see the place before we open up?”

The museum was something of a motley collection; it was mostly concerned with local maritime history, but there was also a small section on American history, and one dedicated to the ecology of the region, with maps and taxidermied wildlife and plants pressed behind glass, even a little diorama. Stan liked that section the best. He gave the stuffed stag a friendly pat on the head as they passed.

Rory begged off taking him to the top of the lighthouse for the moment- “It makes these poor old bones ache enough as it is running groups up there three times a day”-which was perfectly fine with Stan, who truthfully did not want to have anything to do with something that high up. They did look around the rooms at the bottom, however, which were set up as they would have been back when the lighthouse was in operation and had a keeper living there.

“Here we go,” Rory said, opening a door with an **Employees Only** sign hanging on it to reveal a dusty room crowded with boxes. “I’ve been using this for storage, mostly, but I can clear it out for you. Bit small, I know, but it’s a place to lay your head.”

Stan was too busy being relieved that he didn’t have to sleep at the top of the lighthouse to care about how big the room was.

Together, he and Rory cleared out the room, and Rory located an old army cot, some bedding, a lamp and a couple of empty crates for general furniture purposes. By the time they were done it was nearly ten o’clock.

“I won’t ask you to do anything today,” Rory said, dusting himself off. “I reckon you’re worn out as hell, and anyway I gotta open right now and I don’t have time to show you the ropes. So you take a nap, get yourself hydrated, and heal that sunburn, and then we’ll go over things over the weekend and you can start working on Monday. How’s that sound?”

“Amazing,” Stan said, flopping down onto the cot with a groan. He was asleep almost instantly.

Rory smiled and closed the door gently before going to open the museum.

 

Things went well at first.

Stan cleaned the museum, sweeping and dusting off the exhibits, weeded the garden, ran errands in town, carried things, helped Rory sort through papers and artifacts, and in general did whatever odd tasks came up that Rory couldn’t do or didn’t have time for. It was, as promised, hard work, but he was determined to do it right. He had screwed up enough already; he wasn’t going to waste this last chance.

In fact, things went so well, so _suspiciously_ well, that he found himself tensing up, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Something was going to go wrong sooner or later.

It was on a rainy Sunday afternoon two weeks in that Rory asked him to help catalogue some old letters.

“Just go through them one by one and write down the date, who it was from, and who sent it,” he said, setting the box down on the overcrowded desk in the back room. “If you can’t make something out, just put a question mark down. Easy enough.”

And it should have been easy enough. Except the letters were faded with age and the writing was old-fashioned and curly and Stan couldn’t make _any_ of it out.

He started to say, “Ford, I need to borrow your glasses,” but only got as far as “Ford-” before he realized.

“Everything alright?” Rory called from the other room.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stan said hastily. He _couldn’t_ ask for help on something as stupidly simple at this. He _couldn’t_.

But Ford wasn’t here and the papers were a blurry mess and the longer he sat there the more his stomach churned because this was it, this was where things went wrong, Rory wasn’t going to keep anyone on who couldn’t even _read_ , he was going to get kicked out all over again-

“Stan?”

He jumped. He’d been squinting so intently at the letter in front of him, he hadn’t even noticed Rory come back into the room.

“Stan, you alright? Are you having trouble with something?” Rory looked over his shoulder, and Stan couldn’t think of anything to say but he had to say something.

“I...I can’t see them,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“I can’t see the letters I’m sorry!”

He closed his eyes and waited for the blow.

There was a dreadfully long pause, and then Rory said, “Stan...you need glasses? Is that it?”

“I...I...no, my eyes just aren’t real good is all.” He really wanted this to be over already.

“Yes, that’s...usually why people need glasses,” Rory said, sounding bemused. “It’s hardly anything to be ashamed of-”

“I don’t _need_ them, though,” Stan said. “I mean, not like Ford...I mean, I did have ‘em when I was a kid, but they kept getting broken and they’re _expensive_ so Dad wouldn’t replace them that often so I just...stopped wearing them most of the time. I’m not...I wasn’t the one who needed to do a lot of readin’ and stuff so it was okay.”

He finally got up the courage to look up, but Rory didn’t look angry. He mostly looked confused.

“I thought you and your brother were identical twins,” he said.

“Uh...we are. Well, ‘cept Ford has more fingers, but that’s some kind of genetic thing-”

“So you should have the same eyesight, surely?”

Stan shrugged.

“But only Ford got glasses?”

“Ford needed them more-”

“Alright, you know what?” _Now_ Rory sounded angry. Stan tightened his shoulders. Here it came. “Let’s just put these letters aside for the moment, okay? They’re not urgent, I just thought it would be a good task for a rainy day.”

“I’m sorry,” Stan mumbled.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Rory said crisply. “I’ll get you something else to do and tomorrow afternoon we’ll close early and go to the pharmacy.”

It took Stan a moment to realize what he meant. “What-but I can’t ask you to-”

“You’re not asking, I’m saying.” Rory stacked up the letters and put them neatly back in the box. “I can’t afford to get you a real prescription pair, I’m afraid, but we can probably find something that will help you get through the summer.”

“But-but-”

“C’mon, let’s take a break. I could use a cup of tea.”

 

Stan picked out the pair of glasses that looked the least like Ford’s. He didn’t wear them all the time-he didn’t like the little shock he always got when he caught his reflection-but it was nice to be able to read things if he needed to.

With a little bit of the first paycheck Rory gave him, he bought some comic books from the newstand down by the grocery store and read them in his room at night.

He wondered if Ford was following the same stories, somewhere that felt very far away.

 

Ford had stacked up all of Stan’s leftover comics, organized by issue and title just like Ford had always kept his own, and put them in a box under the bed.

By sheer force of habit he bought their favorite titles when they came out for the month, and only realized what he’d done when he got home. Not knowing what else to do, he put Stan’s in the box under the bed and threw his own onto the desk in disgust, where they sat unread, slowly getting buried under his work.

The next month he did it all over again.

 

By late June, Rory started having Stan run the museum’s tiny gift shop occasionally. This led to some discussions about business practices.

“You’re so nice to the customers,” Stan said one afternoon after Rory had given someone a refund for a t-shirt that didn’t fit right.

Rory looked up from the cash register. “Is there some reason I shouldn’t be?”

Stan shrugged. “My dad always said you have to be firm with people from the start or they’ll take advantage of you.”

Rory took a deep breath and tapped his fingers on the counter for a minute. “Well,” he said eventually, “your dad can run his business however he likes, but here we run things the way I want to.”

Stan flushed and ducked his head and went back to sweeping.

“Besides,” Rory said after a short, awkward silence, “no one’s going to take advantage of me. I’ve lived in this town for fifty years. I know _everyone’s_ secrets.”

Stan laughed and carried on, but he mulled over the conversation for a long time afterward.

 

He should have been happy when the acceptance letter came, but all he felt was...tired.

“So you got in, then?” Filbrick said when he showed his parents. “Is this one of the good ones?”

“It's... it's alright,” Ford hedged.

“Alright? Why'd you settle for alright?”

Because all his applications had been lackluster, because he couldn't concentrate long enough or care enough to make them as good as they should have been, because nothing was going to work out anyway so why bother-

“The really good ones are...expensive,” he mumbled.

Filbrick grunted. “Typical. Your brother-”

“We'll be proud of you wherever you go,” his mom broke in, giving Ford a tight hug.

Sure, he thought dully. If wherever I go happens to come with a lot of cash.

He went upstairs and laid on his bed for a long time, looking up at the posters he'd never taken down.

_His fault. It's his fault this happened to me._

_It's his fault I can't feel anything about it._

 

“Stan, how would you feel about giving a tour?”

Stan froze. Then he realized the problem with this, finished putting the box he was holding onto the shelf, and re-froze. “What?”

“I think you'd be good at it. You're good with people. And you know the place from top to bottom by now.”

“You...you’d trust me with that?”

“No, absolutely not, that’s why I asked you do it.” Rory rolled his eyes fondly. “Look, you’d be doing me a favor. My joints are hurting something awful today. I don’t feel up to all that walking about.”

Stan liked the idea. He’d always enjoyed playing to a crowd. Put him in front of an audience and everything got easier somehow. He worried less about whether people would like him, about whether he was doing things right, about whether he was smart or worthy or really good for anything, because in a way it wasn’t about _him_ anymore. It was almost like he got to be someone else for a while.

“Alright,” he said. “I’ll give it a shot.”

The morning tour turned into every tour for the day. Rory sat in the gift shop listening to Stan telling bombastic tales of maritime adventure and introducing every stuffed animal in the ecology section by name, and smiled to himself.

“You did really well with those tours,” he told Stan while they were locking up. “You interested in doing them more often?”

Stan blinked at him. “I did good?”

“Yeah, you were really something out there. You’ve got a gift for that sort of thing.”

_A gift. A gift._

_I’m_ good _at something._

He rode the glow of that compliment for a week and a half.

 

The perpetual motion machine that wasn’t had been sitting in the corner of his room all summer, covered by his old jacket so he didn’t have to look at it. He’d never tried to fix it after the science fair, just took it straight home and left it on the bookcase in the corner without ever taking a closer look at it. He wasn’t sure why he was doing so now.

Well, he might at least see if it was salvageable at all. Maybe he could get some use out of it yet. There had to be someone out there who would buy a perpetual motion machine.

He took it apart, carefully, bit by bit, laying the parts to the upper mechanism across his desk before opening up the top. He expected...he didn’t really know what, but some kind of evidence of sabotage, at least. Smashed parts, gum in the works, something that would speak to the hand of Stan at work. But in fact he saw...nothing. Nothing appeared to be out of order at all.

With some careful work with a penlight he finally found the culprit: one small but crucial fuse that had shorted out. It took less time to replace it than it had to figure out what was wrong in the first place. He put it all back together, started the machine, and leaned back and watched dully as it worked perfectly.

So.

It was...technically possible that Stan had deliberately damaged the fuse. It was just _extremely_ unlikely. If Stan wanted to break something, it would be very obviously broken. Careful, precision sabotage was not remotely Stan’s style.

It was much more likely that Stan had been telling the truth about it being an accident all along.

Ford put his head down on his desk and watched the device spin around and around.

 _He still damaged it and didn’t tell me about it. He_ admitted _to that. Doesn’t it come down to the same thing, really?_

_Not if he didn’t think it was damaged. If he didn’t think there was any reason to say anything-_

_But he should have! He should have said something, he knew how important this was to me, he shouldn’t have taken the chance-_

_You didn’t say anything to_ him _when he was asking you for help. And you knew damn well how important_ that _was to him._

Around and around…

 

Stan was sitting on his cot reading when there was a knock at the door. He’d gotten more used to this over the course of the summer, but it still always surprised him a little. Back home no one had ever bothered to knock before coming in their bedroom, or anywhere else for that matter.

“Uh, come in?”

Rory entered and sat down on the lone chair that had found its way in there. He was rubbing his hands against his knees, something Stan had noticed was a nervous tic of his.

“So,” the old man said, “we’re getting near to the end of the summer now.”

The dread hit Stan like a sledgehammer. He’d forgotten. He’d been _enjoying_ working at the museum and he’d started to take it for granted. He hadn’t noticed that summer was draining away.

“Here’s the thing,” Rory went on. “I would love to keep you on, Stan, I really would. You’re a good worker and I’ve really come to enjoy your company. You liven up the place, y’know?” He chuckled a little sadly.

“But the fact of it is I’m just not going to have the money. Once the season ends we won’t get a lot of activity. There really wouldn’t be that much for you to do anyway, to be honest.”

Stan nodded, trying not to betray his panic. This was it. He was going to get kicked out all over again. This time he really would have to start making it on his own.

“But like I said, you’re a good worker and you have a gift for engaging people and it’d be a damn shame for that to go to waste,” Rory said. “And I...I don’t want to just leave you in the lurch, you know.” He took a deep breath. “So I called around, and...I may have found an opening for you.”

Everything in Stan’s head screeched to a halt.

“Friend of mine up in Maine runs a place, bigger than this, with a lot more...erm...theatricality. Reenactors and such, you know, and he does all kinds of events...it sounded like it’d be a good fit for you and he’s willing to give you a chance-oof!”

Stan launched off the bed and cut Rory off with a huge bear hug.

“Heh. I...take it that means you’re interested?” the old man said after recovering his composure.

“Thank you,” Stan whispered.

“Well, don’t thank me yet. It’s up to you to make it work out. But, you know, I have faith in you, Stan.”

Stan finally pulled back, running a hand across his eyes.

It was...going to be okay.

More okay than he even had the right to expect.

“I...I really can’t thank you enough,” he mumbled, looking down at his sneakers. He didn’t understand what he had done to deserve all this.

“Well...there is one thing you could do,” Rory said.

Stan looked up at once. “What? Anything. Anything you want-”

“Call your brother.”

Stan stopped mid-word. “Wh...what?”

Rory leaned back in his chair, rubbing one hand along his jaw thoughtfully.

“I’m not gonna say you have to settle up with your whole family,” he said. “There’s...a lot to work out there, and maybe you want to give that a shot, but if you don’t, well, you don’t. Heck, I ain’t even saying you _have_ to settle up with your brother. But...the way I’ve heard you talk about him, it’s clear to me there’s a lot of love there. And that’s worth hanging onto, if you can. But the longer you wait, the harder it’ll get to work things out.”

“But...but…” Stan swallowed hard. “But he turned his back on me! He left me to hang! And I…” He clenched a fist around the fabric of his shirt. “And I...ruined everything for him. How am I supposed to fix _that?_ ”

“Aye, well...sounds to me like you both made some stupid mistakes,” Rory said. “But you know, everyone does. Making stupid mistakes is what being young is _for._ It ain’t right for that to eat up the whole rest of your life.”

Stan twisted his shirt back and forth. “O...okay but...but even if I wanted to make up, he wouldn’t! He was glad to get rid of me!”

“I imagine he was angry and hurt and not thinkin’ real clear at the time,” Rory said, rather dryly. “It’s been a long summer since then. He might very well have changed his mind.”

He waited patiently while Stan sat there twisting his hands into frantic knots.

“But...what if I call home and Dad picks up?” he said finally. “I...I can’t talk to him. I haven’t...I haven’t made back the money and he...he…”

Rory considered this for a moment. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll make the call, and ask for your brother, and then hand the phone off to you. That way you won’t have to talk to anyone but him.”

Stan thought about this for a long time.

It was a terrifying prospect. He didn’t know if he could do it. He honestly didn’t know if he _wanted_ to do it.

But the old man was asking this of him, after giving him so much.

“Alright,” he said at last. “Alright...I’ll do it.”

Rory grinned hugely and slapped him on the back. “Attaboy! C’mon, I tell you what. Get through this and then afterward we’ll go out to Marcie’s. Deal?”

Stan grinned back. Marcie’s was the little ice cream parlor downtown that made banana splits to die for. “Deal.”

 

Ford was at his desk staring at a quantum physics textbook and not taking in a single word of it when the call of “ _STANFORD!”_ startled him into slamming his knee into the underside of the desk.

He stood up hastily, wincing, and hurried down the stairs to find his father in the living room, holding up the phone. “Someone’s called for you.”

Ford stared. No one _ever_ called for him. “...Who?”

“Dunno. Some old guy. You gonna take it or what?”

It must have been someone from the college. That was the only thing that made sense, although them calling on a Saturday night didn’t, so much. “Uh...yeah, yeah, of course.”

Filbrick handed him the phone and shuffled off. Ford put it to his ear, coughed nervously, and said, “Hello?”

“Stanford?” the voice on the other end said. It wasn’t familiar at all.

“Uh, speaking?”

“Good, good. I got someone here who wants to talk to you.” There was the sound of the other phone being handed to someone else, and then-

“Uh...hey, bro. It’s, uh, it’s me.”

 

Stan held his breath, expecting to hear Ford slam the phone down on the spot, or perhaps say something like, “I have nothing to say you to, Stanley,” in that clipped tone he got when he was being really snippy, or maybe-

He definitely did not expect his brother to all but _shriek,_ “ _STANLEY? Where have you BEEN?_ ”

Stan was completely flummoxed.

“Wh...wh...where have I _been?_ ” he spluttered. “What do you _mean_ , where have I _been_? I got kicked out, remember? What, were you expecting me to pop back in on Sunday afternoons for tea?”

“I...I...well, I mean, no, but...I didn’t know what happened to you! You took the Stan o’War and I thought...I didn’t know if you’d shipwrecked or drowned or-”

“Wait. Did you...you thought I was _dead?_ ” Stan boggled at the phone. “Ford, you absolute _drama queen_.”

He could practically _hear_ Ford’s cheeks flush. “Well _pardon me_ for being worried after you took a _clearly_ unsafe craft out with no sailing experience-”

“I will pardon _nothing!_ ” Stan snapped back. “I’ll have you know the Stan o’War did just fine! Anyway, what do you care what I did? You were perfectly fine with me being kicked out onto the street!”

There was a horrible, ringing silence. Both of them were breathing hard. Stan clenched his eyes shut. This was going just as horribly as he’d expected. Ford was never going to forgive him-

“I’m sorry,” Ford said.

Stan opened his eyes.

“You what?” he said.

“I...all summer I kept thinking...about all the things I’d never get to say to you,” Ford said quietly. “And I...well, I’ll have you know I’m still very angry at you, Stanley.”

“This is some apology,” Stan muttered.

“But...but I’m not _that_ angry. Not so angry that I wanted...that I…”

 

Ford sank down onto the couch, clutching the telephone like his only lifeline in a storm. There was so much he wanted to say but he was locking up and he couldn’t get the words out and he hated it, he hated when this happened to him, he’d finally gotten a chance to talk to Stanley again and he was going to ruin it because he could never figure out how to say the right thing.

He swallowed hard a few times. “I...I missed you, Stan.”

Stan sighed and leaned against Rory’s counter. “I missed you too, bro.”

And then, “I...I really am sorry about breaking your project. I swear I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t! I was just...I was scared, Ford. You were going to leave me all alone…”

He heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end of the line. “I thought...you were just upset about the treasure-hunting thing.”

“What? No. _Ford_.” Stan rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I mean, I did want that...I do...I don’t know. But that wasn’t...it was something we were going to do _together_ , you know? All those years we said we were going to get out of New Jersey someday. But...but then suddenly it was just _you_ , you were going to go away and I was gonna get left behind to rot. I knew I couldn’t do it on my own...you know I ain’t got nothing going for me, Ford. I mean, you heard what they said.”

Ford was thrown by this last one. “What? What who said?”

“In the office that day.” Stan put on a less than flattering impersonation of their high school principal. “ _At least you’ll have one son staying in New Jersey forever.”_

Ford bit his lip, hard. “I...I didn’t know you heard that.”

“Of course I heard that, Ford, I was right outside the door! They didn’t even have to call me up with you, but they did ‘cause…’cause, I don’t know, ‘cause they knew it didn’t matter what I did, I guess.”

Ford couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

He hadn’t known. Or maybe he had, deep down, but hadn’t wanted to. He had been offered a glorious opportunity, beyond all his wildest dreams, and all Stan had seemed to care about was _his_ dream. He’d even made fun of Ford when he’d been raving about West Coast Tech, dismissed the first chance Ford had ever really had to be accepted for what he was as “some nerd school”. Unimportant compared to some childish dream that Stan just wouldn’t let go of.

He hadn’t ever thought that Stan might be _scared_. What would Stan have to be scared of? Stan could get by. He could talk his way into or out of anything, he blew off trouble like it was nothing, he could throw a punch and charm a girl and crack a stupid joke in the worst of circumstances. He could do all the things Ford couldn’t. He didn’t need a special school to escape to, didn’t need to dream of finally finding a place where he would be accepted, where his gifts would outweigh his flaws. He could make it anywhere.

Right?

Stan could hear Ford tapping his fingers against the phone, like he always did when he got stressed out and ran out of words. It was...almost comforting, to hear that unique rhythm again. One-two-three-four-five-six. One-two-three-four-five-six.

“So...so um, what have you been doing?” he said, desperate and unable to figure out anywhere else to take the conversation. “I mean...did you get into another school?”

He heard a small, bitter laugh on the other end. “I did. It sucks, though.”

“Oh.” Stan winced. “I-I’m sorry-”

“What about _you?_ What happened to you? I’ve been wondering all summer-did you-” Ford actually giggled hysterically a little. “Did you find any treasure?”

“Oh. Uh...well, you’re not gonna believe this, but I’ve actually been working at this museum-”

“What? A museum? _You?_ ”

“I know, I know, rub it in. I’m turning into a proper nerd, I am.” He ran a finger along the rim of the glasses tucked into his pocket. “See, I, uh, I kinda got...rescued by this guy. Rory. That was him you heard a minute ago...he runs this museum and he sorta, I guess he saw me off the coast ‘cause I was kind of drifting...so he sailed out and got me, and then he said he needed help for the summer...he’s real nice, Ford, like you wouldn’t believe. He gave me a place to crash and everything…”

 

“That’s-that’s great, Stan.” He was smiling now and he couldn’t seem to stop. “But...you _did_ have to get rescued.”

“I wouda been fine,” Stan grumbled, but there was no heat in it.

“So...where is this place, anyway? Did you get out of New Jersey after all?”

Stan laughed, big and loud, and Ford hadn’t even realized how much he’d missed that laugh. “I _did!_ I did! I didn’t get real far but I got out of New Jersey all right! So I guess they were wrong after all, huh?”

“Yeah,” Ford said, grinning and definitely _not_ crying, not even a little bit. “About...about a lot of things…”

 

Rory was waiting in the main room of the apartment with a smile when Stan finally walked out of the kitchen.

“Well?”

“You...uh...I guess you were right,” Stan mumbled. He was blushing and looking away, but he couldn’t quite hide the happy note in his voice.

Rory grinned and stood up to clap him on the shoulder. “I’m real glad I was. So...we made a deal, right?”

Stan’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s right! And let me tell you, I could _really_ go for one of those banana splits right now…”

 

It was only one o’clock, but Stan had already cleaned the entire museum from top to bottom, rearranged the gift shop twice, weeded the garden and polished each plaque til it shone, and given two tours at such a break-neck pace that the tourists had looked a little shell-shocked at the end.

Rory let him do it, knowing there was no real point in telling Stan to calm down, but he was relieved when the El Diablo finally pulled up outside.

Stan stopped and stood in the doorway. All of the frantic energy seemed to have suddenly left and taken interest with it; he had gone still as a statue, eyes wide, his shaking hands the only remaining sign of life.

Rory came up and put a gentle hand on Stan’s shoulder, and together they watched Ford slowly get out of the car and walk across the parking lot.

For a moment the twins just stood there, staring at each other. Rory looked back and forth between them and finally broke the spell by whistling loudly. “Damn! You two really are the spitting image of each other.”

Next thing he knew the twins were laughing and hugging each other so tight he was surprised no one came out of it with cracked ribs.

“You must be Rory,” Ford said when they had finally broken apart, adjusting his disheveled glasses.

“And I take it you’re Stanford.” Rory offered his hand. Ford hesitated, but the old man didn’t even glance at the six-fingered hand he shook.

“Well, c’mon in and look around,” he said, leading the way back inside. “You’re in time to catch Stan’s last tour in a little bit. It’s a treat, let me tell you…”

 

The tiny kitchen being barely large enough for two people, let alone three, Rory insisted on taking them out to eat that night. He listened fondly as the twins chattered around a table at Rico’s. Stan told stories about the tour groups he’d had and gave them the impression of a Minuteman he was working on; Ford told them, a little hesitantly, about Backsupmore.

“It’s...not great,” he said, spreading the pamphlet out on the table for them to look at it. “But I think I can make it work. If I work hard enough.”

Stan rubbed the back of his neck and looked away.

“So, what was this project you had?” Rory asked, before the awkward silence could stretch too thin. “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Ford’s eyes lit up and he launched into a complicated spiel about the theory behind the perpetual motion machine that had Stan groaning and rolling his eyes theatrically. Rory blinked and nodded valiantly in the face of a truly staggering amount of math.

“That sounds real damn impressive,” he said when Ford had finally petered out. “Even after hearing all that, they still turned you down?”

“Er...well, they didn’t,” Ford mumbled. “Hear it, I mean. I didn’t really get to talk about it. As soon as they saw the machine was broken they crossed me off their list.”

“Just like that?” Rory made a loud noise of disgust. “Sounds to me like they weren’t worth your time anyway.”

The look of shock on Ford’s face was so comically extreme that Stan would have howled with laughter if he hadn’t been still been feeling shameful.

“It’s the most prestigious school in the country!” Ford squawked once he’d finally found his voice.

“Oh, I ain’t saying anything against their credentials,” Rory said. “I’m sure they’re real impressive. But if they wrote you off that quickly...well, it doesn’t sound to me like a place that’s real interested in seeing people thrive, y’know?” He stirred his straw around in his ice water thoughtfully. “Now, science is science, and I know things get real serious when you’re dealing with that sort of thing...but if you ask me, the people who really matter will always give you a second chance.”

Ford stared at him.

Fortunately their pizza arrived before anyone had to figure out what to say next. For a while they all sat in the kind of deeply serious silence that could only be achieved by two adolescent young men with a large supreme pizza in front of them.

“So,” Rory said at last, once they were finally slowing down, “you boys got some kind of plan worked out, I take it?”

The twins nodded. “I’m gonna drop Ford off at his school on my way up to Tom’s place,” Stan said. “It’s actually only a couple of hours away from there...”

“Good, good. I’m glad things are working out for you.” He leaned back and watched fondly as Stan gave his brother an affectionate punch on the shoulder. “You know, I think you kids are gonna go far.”

 

 

They left early the next morning, though only after Rory had made one last batch of pancakes for everyone, which they took outside and ate in the garden while the sun came up. Ford and Rory made remarkably un-awkward small talk about the various species of plants in the garden while Stan packed up his things. It didn’t take long.

As he went to toss the battered duffel bag in the back seat of the El Diablo he caught sight of a box with familiar contents.

“Hey...this is...you brought my comics!” Stan rifled through them eagerly, completely destroying the neat packing. “Wait, are some of these new?”

“I...may have bought some of yours over the summer...out of habit,” Ford mumbled. “There’s another box in the trunk with some of your stuff…” He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked away. “I...I knew Dad was just gonna throw it out once I was gone. I mean, he didn’t _say_ he would, but…”

He broke off with an indignant yelp as Stan grabbed him and gave him an affectionate noogie. “You bought _my_ comics? Ford, you dork! I bought them too!”

“...Sorry?” Ford squeaked from the depths of a headlock.

“Nah, it’s great! It’s great! You don’t even know the best part!” Stan let him go and produced his glasses with a flourish. “I can read them now without even having to bug you first!”

Ford opened and shut his mouth helplessly, staring at the garish gold lenses Stan had picked out. “...Those are hideous,” he finally managed.

“I know! Isn’t it fantastic?”

“Save me,” Ford muttered, gently bonking his head against the roof of the car. But he was smiling.

Rory was laughing so hard it took him a long minute to catch his breath. “Now, Stan, you’re going to keep in touch, right?”

“Of course!” Stan said. “I’ll send you souvenir postcards and everything.”

“Good, good. And I’ll look after that boat of yours for you until you can come get it. It’s not a bad little craft, you know.”

This time he was a little more prepared for the bear hug, but only a little.

“I owe you so much,” Stan mumbled. “I can’t ever repay you for all this…”

“Oof. You can start by not breakin’ my spine.” He laughed as Stan let him go sheepishly. “Nah, you don’t need to repay me anything. Seeing you go charging off to tackle the world is all I need. But can I give you one bit of advice before you go? It comes with a free mug,” he added, brandishing a souvenir lighthouse mug from the gift shop.

“Yeah, yeah, of course! Anything.”

Rory put his hand on Stan’s shoulder. “Don’t spend your life chasing those millions. It ain’t worth it. I know you want to prove yourself, but...well, if people don’t want to believe in you, they won’t. You can make all the money in the world and they’ll just find some other reason to turn you away. So forget them. Chase your own goals, not someone else’s.” He glanced over at Ford. “That goes for you too, you know.”

Ford looked down at his hands and said nothing.

Stan couldn’t think of anything to say either, so he hugged Rory again-more gently this time. “Thank you for everything.”

Rory wiped at his eyes. “Aw, go on, get. You two have got some adventures to be having. And take your mug with you.”

Stan took the lighthouse mug like it was the most valuable thing in the world. “I’ll call you when I get there?”

The old man grinned. “You damn well better!”

It took a fair amount more waving and farewells before they were actually ready to go, but at long last Stan started the engine. “I’ve missed you, old girl,” he said, patting the steering wheel. “Well, bro? Ready for the next day of the rest of our lives?”

“Put your seatbelt on, Stan.”

Stan rolled his eyes, but he obeyed. “Alright! Next stop...uh...definitely not New Jersey!”

Ford laughed and held up his hand almost shyly. “...High six?”

Stan looked startled for a minute, but then he grinned and all but slammed his hand into Ford’s. “High six!”

 

 

A great deal of postcards, phone calls, photos and letters traveled back and forth between a certain three points on the east coast for the next few years. Stan sent out correspondence with stories about tourists and working with museum artifacts and fishing on his days off, and got back stories about Ford’s classes and his weird roommate and about life in the off-season at the museum. Ford complained to him about the food and the crummy dorm rooms, and Stan told him how his costume tended to itch and how some of the museum visitors couldn’t take a hint for anything.

He drove down to visit Rory for a few days over the winter holidays. Ford went home, but he left early and spent the last week of his break staying with Stan, visiting the museum and the docks and a little park that was, apparently, so amazing for bird-watching that Stan had to drag him out of it before he stayed so long he got hypothermia.

“So what do you think?” Rory asked his friend over the phone one morning in January as he sat in his kitchen with a cup of tea, watching the snow come down.

“Well, he does a great job with the re-enactment. Not, you know, the _most_ historically accurate, but he really gets into it and people love him. Especially kids. But you know, I had him helping Joe touch up some of the dioramas and I gotta say, he’s got more of a knack for that than I would’ve expected.”

Rory beamed.

“I see what you meant about the self-esteem, though,” his friend went on. “Anytime I even kinda suggest he might’ve made a mistake he just gets this _look_ on his face…”

The old man sighed. “Yeah. The kid’s had some tough breaks.”

“I can tell. But I think he’ll be alright…”

 

Ford still worked himself to death if given half a chance, but his roommate took to calling Stan for backup when Ford stayed up too late or had panic attacks over exams. This was not, shockingly, detrimental to Ford’s academic performance. It might even have improved it, if such a thing were possible.

He eventually let it slip that he was keeping in touch with Stan, and had to endure a thunderous lecture from his father about how Stan was only going to drag him down and it was high time he learned to shake off that loser once and for all and hadn’t he learned his lesson after the science fair incident?

But his mother asked for Stan’s address.

 

“So, you’re graduating soon, right?” Stan asked him over the phone one night. “When’s the date? I wanna be there.”

Ford hesitated.

“I...I mean, unless you don’t want me to,” Stan mumbled, twisting the phone cable around his finger. “I’d understand, if you didn’t want me around your smart friends and all-”

“It’s not that!” Ford said hastily. “I’d love to have you come, I really would! It’s just...Mom and Dad are coming up, and...I know...you and Dad...I mean, you might not want…”

Stan blew out a sigh of relief. “What, is that all? Sixer, I’m not letting Dad stop me from seeing you get that diploma! Lemme talk to Tasha.”

Ford stared at the phone. “Tasha? What-”

“So, what’s the day?”

Ford told him, and proceeded to worry himself sick for the next month about whether a large and ugly fight was going to break out during his graduation.

He needn’t have worried. Tasha, it transpired, did the makeup for the re-enactors at the museum.

“Wow,” was all he could say when he saw Stan the morning of the ceremony. “That’s...wow. I don’t even recognize you.”

Stan grinned at him from behind a large fake beard. “You hear that, Tasha? You made me up so good my own twin brother doesn’t know me.”

Tasha, a tiny woman with vibrantly pink hair, beamed like a spotlight. “Can I quote you on that for my resume?”

With some strategic planning they managed to get Stan-and Tasha-a seat as far away from their parents as possible. The plan went off without a hitch. Stan even remembered to cheer and scream “GO, FORD!” in a thick British accent.

A fight did, in fact, break out, but it was between Fiddleford and his nemesis in the Home Ec department, and the participants were separated from each other fairly quickly.

Later-after Ford had gotten a hug from his mother and a stiff handshake from his father, after dodging his way through questions about what he was going to do now and whether it would bring in any money, after Fiddleford had been given some strong coffee and had his banjo gently taken away for awhile, after Stan had scrubbed all or at least most of the makeup and spirit gum off-they all went out for drinks. Fiddleford talked about his plans to start up his own computer company. Ford talked about the grant he had gotten and his plans to study anomalies.

“There’s this little town out in Oregon called Gravity Falls that I’ve been researching,” he explained. “It has the highest concentration of anomalies in the _world_. All kinds of strange stories have come out of that place. So...I think I’m going to go out there and see for myself.”

“Gravity Falls, huh?” Stan said. “That sounds like a good place for a museum.”

 

 


End file.
